Slipstream (70 page)

‘A memoir which brought tears – of laughter and of sympathy – to my eyes several times. I don’t think I’ve read such a
nakedly vulnerable autobiography since Spender’s
World Within World
50 years ago’ Anthony Thwaite,

Sunday Telegraph

‘Enormously engaging . . . does everything a good autobiography should’

Independent on Sunday

‘After you have finished it, you find that this . . . tale keeps coming back into the mind’

The Times

‘Elizabeth Jane Howard’s gripping memoirs read like a who’s who of the literary world’

Independent

‘With this memoir, she has proved herself to be as much of an old devil as the best of them’

New Statesman

‘Utterly honest’

Scotsman

Elizabeth Jane Howard is the author of twelve highly acclaimed novels, most recently
Falling
published in 1999. Her Cazalet Chronicles –
Casting Off
,
The Light Years
,
Marking Time
and
Confusion
– have become established as modern classics and were televised by the BBC. In 2000, she was awarded a CBE
in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List.

Also by Elizabeth Jane Howard

The Beautiful Visit

The Long View

The Sea Change

After Julius

Odd Girl Out

Something in Disguise

Getting it Right

Mr Wrong

Falling

The Cazalet Chronicle

The Light Years

Marking Time

Confusion

Casting Off

The Lover’s Companion (ed.)

Green Shades (ed.)

To my daughter Nicola

List of Illustrations

All photographs are from private collections unless otherwise specified.

Section 1

With my father (c.1933).

My mother, a dancer in the corps de ballet (c.1917) of Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes.

Enrico Cecchetti’s class; the teacher whom all ballet dancers revered.

With my brother, Robin, and Si, my grandfather’s monstrous mongrel (c.1929).

At Lansdowne Road, aged about eight (c.1931).

My father loved sailing (c.1930).

My father’s mother, Florence Howard, with the reprehensible Si.

My father’s father, Alexander Howard.

The Beacon, our family’s holiday home in Sussex (c.1927).

Home Place, my father’s parents’ house, 3½ miles from the Beacon.

My mother with Colin, shortly after his birth (c.1932).

Edith Somervell, my mother’s musical mother.

With Colin at Lansdowne Road.

A very small selection of family at the Beacon.

Peter Scott and Lady Kennet, his mother, known as K.

Peter, my first husband (1942). (copyright Fayer Camera Portraits)

After my wedding with Peter Scott (1942).

My portrait in
Country Life
(1942). (copyright
Country Life
magazine)

With Peter and K (c.1943).

Wayland, Pete’s brother, drawn by Pete (1940). (copyright
Country Life
magazine)

Pen drawing of me, by Pete at Cowes (1942). (copyright
Country Life
magazine)

The naval production of
The Importance of Being Earnest
at Anglesea (1942).

Number 8 Edwardes Square.

With Robert Aickman at Covent Garden. (copyright Graphic Photo Union)

At the publication of my first novel (1950).

On the
Ailsa Crag
with Robert Aickman and Anthea and James Sutherland.

Cecil Day-Lewis (c.1936). (copyright National Portrait Gallery)

Section 2

After my daughter Nicola’s christening on HMS
Discovery
.

Nicola aged three.

On the
Queen Mary
, returning from New York with Pete (1946).

A. D. Peters (c.1972).

Jill Balcon and Cecil Day-Lewis, and me, at the christening of their daughter, Tamasin.

Romain Gary and his second wife Jean Seberg. (copyright Bettman/CORBIS)

Arthur Koestler. (copyright Bettman/CORBIS)

Laurie Lee (c.1955).

At Blomfield Road with Katsika, whom I’d criminally smuggled from Greece. (copyright Tony Armstrong Jones)

Kingsley Amis. (copyright Keith McMillan)

With Charlie Chaplin on the set of
A King in New York
(c.1956).

Nicola watching a rider.

In my study at Maida Vale. (copyright Gisele Freund)

With Kingsley at Maida Vale (1964). (copyright Associated Newspapers Ltd)

With the Fussells and the Keeleys in Greece.

With Rosie Plush, my first cavalier spaniel. (copyright Mark Gerson)

Sargy Mann painting.

Lemmons, Hadley Common (1968).

Kingsley in his study at Lemmons.

Colin, my brother, known as Monkey.

Kingsley at Lemmons (c.1972). (copyright Fay Godwin)

Catalogue for the sale of Gardnor House (1976). (courtesy John D. Wood/Savills)

In the garden at Delancey Street (1983).

Bridge House (c.1990).

Bridge House garden in winter (c.1995).

Acknowledgements

There are various people I would like to thank. Hazel Orme has copy-edited six of my books and I would not contemplate a seventh without her. I’m also grateful to Paul
Bailey and Patrick O’Connor for their help in the compilation of the biographical notes of the people who appear in the book. Selina Hastings has put up with having most of the book read
aloud to her. Jeremy Trevathan, my editor and publisher, was meticulous and kind and also helped to fill in some of the pitfalls without once mentioning a spade. I’d also like to thank Jacqui
Graham, who for years now has managed to make all the fringe activities of being a writer veer between being OK to downright enjoyable.

Finally, I’d like to thank Jill Day-Lewis and the Day-Lewis Estate for permission to quote Cecil Day Lewis’s poem ‘At Lemmons’ on
this page
.

First published 2002 by Macmillan

This edition published 2003 by Pan Books

This electronic edition published 2010 by Pan Books
an imprint of Pan Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
Pan Macmillan, 20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR
Basingstoke and Oxford
Associated companies throughout the world
www.panmacmillan.com

ISBN 978-0-330-52784-2 PDF
ISBN 978-0-330-52783-5 EPUB

The right of Elizabeth Jane Howard to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital,
optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be
liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

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